In its first decade, the GAVI Alliance has helped prevent the deaths of more than five million children by introducing more widespread vaccination in low-income countries, “[b]ut, going forward, the alliance is going to have to think more about getting parents to vaccinate their kids â€“ the demand side of health â€“ especially if it wants to repeat the huge victory of wiping out a disease” such as smallpox, Charles Kenny writes in his weekly column for Foreign Policy.

More than 18,000 cases of cholera have been recorded in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince since the beginning of May, an increase that may be related to “the beginning of the rainy season and the flooding that hit the capital,” according to Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesperson, Agence France-Presse reports.

This Health Affairs article examines GHI’s funding and other challenges. “Questions now being raised about the Global Health Initiative focus not just on funding, but on whether the program is broadening the U.S. foreign assistance portfolio on health, building countries’ health system capacities, and meeting other objectives. So far, the picture looks mixed,” the article states (Bristol, June 2011).

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday that “it has become a signatory of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), which “means that grant information currently on the Global Fund website will be aligned to an internationally agreed set of standards” and “[f]inancial and grant activity…

Syndicated columnist and ONE senior adviser Michael Gerson, in a CNN opinion piece, reviews the documentary “Voodoo and Vaccines,” which he writes “shows how government and health officials have reached out to religious leaders, and how many traditional healers are now carrying a pro-vaccination message. They are combining a belief in traditional medicine with an acceptance of modern medicine. And this is benefiting the people of Benin.”

Recent improvements in health indicators in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “[i]n no small part, â€¦ are connected to the rollout of basic health services,” even at a time when the country’s economy is shrinking and its population is growing, Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, writes in his Foreign Policy column.

Valerie Amos, head of the U.N. Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, on Friday “plead[ed] with international donors to overlook political difficulties in the face of a humanitarian crisis” in North Korea, where she said it is estimated six million people are in danger of not getting enough to eat, Agence France-Presse reports.